


Hot Flashes

by Kingjoethecat



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Michael Mells two moms, Mutual Pining, Post-Squip, Self-Harm, boyf riends — Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 10:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11355666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kingjoethecat/pseuds/Kingjoethecat
Summary: It's the hottest week New Jersey had seen in years, kids in classes are getting dress coded just for showing up. Yet one Michael Mell continues to not take off his jacket.  More at 11.





	Hot Flashes

**Author's Note:**

> Check out the notes at the end for trigger warnings if you don't want to be completely spoiled.
> 
> Here's my obligatory notice that this is my first fic so please be gentle.
> 
> Edited on 7/2/17  
> Special thank you to UpsideAround for helping me with some grammar!

The weathermen were saying it was the hottest May New Jersey had even seen. For Michael it was the hottest he had even had to go to school in, and he was suffering for it. He looked down at his arms in the t-shirt he was currently wearing. His old scars weren’t noticeable at all, but the ones he had made last fall still were. There was still red lining a few of them.

Michael sighed, he hadn’t spent months making sure no one had ever seen his arms for nothing. Rich had even begun the rumor that he was like the headless horseman but with no arms. He searched his room for the lightest hoodie he could find and pulled out a light yellow jacket from under his bed. He turned back to the mirror and scowled, yellow was not his color, why did he even have this?

He walked downstairs quietly, not wanting to wake up his moms. He turned the corner to the kitchen and screamed when he saw the two woman in the kitchen, they were already up. What were they doing up? They were never up this early. His morning routine was already messed up with the weather situation, now his moms were ruining it even more.

His scream had scared his Nanay, and she screamed as well. His Mama just watched in amusement as their screams died down. “The office overheated,” she told Michael, not looking away from the pan of eggs over the stove. “They can’t get the power on so they let us have the day off.”

His Nanay nods her head in agreement “I decided to just take the day off, we were thinking we could do something after your done with school.” She looked down at his clothing, scrunching her nose at his choice “Unless you die of overheating.”

“I am not going to die.” Michael took the plate his Mama held out for him. He looked down at the eggs and bacon that was arranged into a smiley face and snorts. His Mama’s so old school sometimes… wait, did he get his love for 90’s products from…her? He stared down at his plate for what feel like an eternity, needing to ponder the mysteries of the universe until his Nanay stole a piece of bacon.

“If you’re not going to eat it…” She said, eyeing the rest of his food.

His Mama brought another plate for the other woman and looked at Michael closely. “Seriously you need to ditch the jacket, it’s going to be hitting the mid 90’s today.”

Michael doesn’t know what to say, he slowly eats some eggs and his Mama sighs, “No one is going to care about your scars” she doesn’t look at him when she says this.

“I’m going to be late for school.” Michael is up and out of the room before they can say anything, leaving his plate still half full of food.  
~

The inside of the school was somehow even hotter than the outside. The school’s AC couldn’t keep up with the heat, and while it was going full blast, it felt more like an old fan on its last legs of life. Michael felt like he was melting when he first stepped into the main doors. The first thing he saw on the other hand, was Rich wearing not enough clothes while arguing with a security guard.

Rich looked more like he was ready for the beach than school, he had on a white crop top that was more just a piece of fabric that was tied into a bow and denim booty shorts. Michael walked over to him just as the guard threw up his hands and muttered something about not being payed enough for this. Rich looked like the cat that just got the canary.

“Michael!” Rich called, seeing him for the first time. “Where are your arms? Man I was looking forward to seeing them today.”

“Well I wasn’t looking forward to seeing so much of you.” Michael replied, doing another once over, which Rich didn’t miss.

Rich started to exaggeratedly flex his arms. “You like what you see?” He grinned.

“Save it for Jake Lover Boy.”

“Pch, if either of us are lover boys it’s you Michael. Oh Jeremy this, oh Jeremy that, oh can you believe how good Jeremy is at acting.” Rich swooned.

“But seriously?” Rich rubbed the scars on his shoulder. “This weather is really killing me, having sweaty clothing on these feels like tiny barb wires constantly poking at me, it sucks.”

“Uh” Michael isn’t sure what to say to Rich’s sudden emotional whiplash, or the honesty he just displayed.

But Rich waved him off, “Jeremy was walking that way” he points down the hall “I’m going to go see if I can make Jake have a boner in class.” Rich cackled away and Michael momentarily prays for the taller boy before walking down the hall Rich had pointed to.

~

By the time lunch rolled around Michael had a more than a thin layer of sweat clinging to every part of his body. Christine was talking about the kids who have already been sent to the nurse for heatstroke, she kept glancing over to him as if he was going to pass out as well. Hopefully he won’t, but if he does it’s nice to know he’s not the only one.

Jeremy sat closer to him than he would have expected in this heat. Their thighs were just about touching and Michael could feel the heat that Jeremy’s body was expelling. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On one hand he’s always happy to be as close to Jeremy as possible, on the other hand he’s hot and he doesn’t need any extra heat. He weighed his options, if he moves away Jeremy might get the wrong idea and then he’ll move away, and all the subtle flirting he’s been doing could be for nothing. If he doesn’t move away he’ll get even sweatier, and then Jeremy might move away and-

Jeremy had his hand waving in front of his face for who knows how long, how embarrassing. He pulled out a lukewarm water bottle and slapped into Michael’s hand. Michael smiled in a way he hoped was cute and almost chugged the entire bottle.

Christine started to ask him if he’s sure he doesn’t have heat stroke at the same time he got a text from his Mama that read:

Take off that jacket before you get heatstroke.

Michael began to laugh, which wasn’t the best thing to do when two people who care about you ask you if you have heat stroke at the same time. He showed his phone to Jeremy as Christine continued to rant, arms swinging wildly, and he begins to chuckle too.

“Michael” Christine brought out her ‘mom’ voice. Sometimes Michael feels like he has three moms, which isn’t the worst thing, but still feels like too many moms. “Just take off the jacket, I’m sure nothing you reveal can look any worse than Rich.” She pointed over to where he was currently sitting in Jake’s lap.

Jeremy gasped, “Christine that was mean.”

“No, Rich looks wonderful but statically he has the most scar tissue out of all of us.”

“Christine that was still mean.” Jeremy and Christine continued to argue, and neither of them noticed how Michael had stilled when Christine had said the word ‘scar.’

Jenna slid another water bottle to Michael, quickly looking down before whispering close to his ear, “Look at my arm.”

He looks down and is almost surprised to see her bare arms, she had been in the armless horseman club with him up until this day. He’s not surprised to see the neat white lines going up her arm, but he is surprised when she turned her arm over and there’s a singular raised line stretching from her wrist to her elbow crease.

“No one’s said anything to be about it.” She whispered, “Just take off your jacket and no one will say anything, I promise.” She was smiling at him, but Michael couldn’t help his flinch at the thought of actually taking off his jacket.

“Jeremy will care.” He whispered back and Jenna looks confused for a few seconds before getting it.

“You have to take it off, okay?” He’s about to question what she means when Jenna stands up and links elbows with Jeremy.

“Jeremy!” She exclaims, grabbing her stuff and his backpack, “I totally forgot about this project, I really need your help on it.” She drags him out the of the cafeteria and locks eyes with Michael one last time before exiting the doors.

He knows Jenna means well, but now the two people who were on either side of him are gone and he feels more exposed than ever. That is, until Christine scoots over to where Jeremy just was. She smiles at him before starting a conversation with him about their shared English class.

Well fuck, now he has to take off his jacket, or Jenna’s going to kill him. He takes another swig out of the water she gave him, shocked to find it half empty already. He shot off a quick text to his Mama telling her his jacket is off, might as well get some brownie points while he’s at it. He gets an immediate response:

Don’t be lying to me.

Christine was still talking to him, but she’s looking more at her food than him. He took a deep breath before pushing his arms back through the armholes and shrugging off the rest of the jacket. He draped it over his lap and tried to focus on what Christine was saying. She seemed like she hadn’t noticed his jacket was finally off, still engrossed in their mostly one-sided conversation about how their teacher was super wrong about his interpretation of that one line in Shakespeare.

Rich notices right away. “Finally,” he snorted, “Yellow was not your color.”

~

Jeremy thinks the heat must be getting to him because he can’t remember Jenna in any of his classes. He can’t even think of any projects going on his classes, but that’s beside the point. Jenna pulled him into one of the unused classrooms and points at him like they were in some sort of lawyer game.

“What are your intentions with one Michael Mell.”

…That really wasn’t what he was expecting.

“W-what I’m not- we’re, okay it’s, I mean.” He ends his nonsensical ramblings with one of his patented Jeremy’s weird noises.

Jenna looked more like she was going to laugh now, rather than lecture him now. She pulled out one of the seats further into the room and sat down. When he continued to stare at her instead of sitting down, she pulled up another seat and motioned to it. He finally gets the message and sits next to her.

“You have a gigantic crush on Michael” she says, “I want to know if you’re going to do anything about it, or if we’re going to have to set you guys up.”

He gapes like a fish at her words “how do you know I have a c-crush on Michael? Maybe you have a crush on Michael, maybe your trying to throw me off!”

Jenna rolled her eyes at him, and held up one finger “First off Michael is gay,” she added another finger. “I also have better things to do with my time than pine over one of you idiots that go to this school.”

“I thought you needed me help on a project,” Jeremy says. He doesn’t want to talk about Michael right now, he wants to go back to Michael and make sure he drinks enough water and doesn’t get heat stroke.

“Are you sure you don’t have heat stroke?” Jenna asked him, “You said that last part out loud.” 

Jeremy’s eyes scrunched up, and he was about to reply when the lights flickered off and the air became ten degrees hotter.

Jenna sighed, “I’m going home.”

“Yeah,” Jeremy agreed, “Isn’t it like, illegal or something for them to keep us here with no power on?”

“I don’t care I’m going home.”

~

The rest of the student body seemed to have the same idea as Jenna. Masses of students were just walking out the doors as the principal, or someone shouted that the rest of school has been canceled.

Jeremy walked over to Michael’s P.T Cruiser and was surprised to see him not yet in it. The lunch room was closer to the parking lot than where he was with Jenna. Jeremy began to walk back into the school when he saw Jake and Rich out of the corner of his eye. He swerved, nearly running into another student, and started walking to them instead.

“Hey!” Jeremy called out and Jake stopped.

“Oh thank fuck, Michael was gonna kill us if we didn’t find you.” Rich came bounding towards Jeremy.

“What’s going on?” Jeremy asks, Rich’s words made red sirens go off in his mind.

“Just follow us.” Jake rushed back into the school.

~

Michael was in the nurse’s office, swatting away the nurse’s hands from getting near him. When the power went out he may have stood up a little too fast, and blacked out a little bit. He was fine, all he wanted to do was go home and take a cool bath, maybe guilt his Nanay into getting him some ice cream from the store. He also wanted Jeremy to come and find him. Maybe he could hold his hand and tell him everything would be alright. But Jeremy wasn’t there, Jeremy never seemed to be there when Michael needed him.

~

That was the scene Jeremy stumbled into when he came running into the nurse’s office. Michael looked miserable, his jacket wasn’t anywhere near him, and there was an oversized ice pack on top of his head. His headphones were around his neck and Jeremy winced when he realized he could hear the music that was playing, Michael was not happy at all.

“Michael?” He tried to softly call out, but his words still seemed to echo back at him .

Michael of all things, pouted.

“Michael?” He tried again.

Michael gave an over exaggerated sigh. “Yes Jeremy?”

“Uh.” Jeremy didn’t know what to say. What did you say when your crush was in the nurse’s office suffering from heatstroke? Hey man you feeling alright? That was stupid of course he wasn’t alright.

Michael sighed again, “My moms are coming to pick me up so you probably can’t get a ride from me.”

“Oh, that’s fine man. Do, do you want me to stay until they get here?”

Michael looked up at him for the first time since Jeremy got there and nodded. Jeremy walked over from the doorway and sat down next to Michael on the uncomfortable cot.

“Are you, alright?” Oh good job Jeremy that was stupid.

Michael gave a breathy laugh, “Not at all.”

“Do you maybe wanna talk about it?” Jeremy was on a roll for stupid questions of the day.

“No.” Michael looked away, “I just feel stupid for getting heat stroke.” He mumbled, but Jeremy still heard it.

“It’s stupid that we had to go to school today, tons of people got heat stroke.” There, Jeremy finally managed to say something not dumb for the first time today.

“Yeah.” Michael agreed, but he kept his gaze at his shoes.

“Um, are you sure you don’t wanna talk about it?” Jeremy’s back to stupid questions.

Michaels shoulders shot up to his ears and his next breath sounded suspiciously like a sob. “It’s stupid.” His voice cracked at the end of his statement.

“Hey.” Jeremy starts gently rubbing his back, “It’s alright.”

His touch was the straw that broke the camel’s back, Jeremy suddenly had an armful of sobbing Michael in his arms. The ice pack fell to the floor with little fanfare.

“I just,” he says in between sobs, “This was the first time, I’ve been hurt, and,” he’s shaking now, “And you weren’t there.”

Michael wasn’t wrong. Jeremy was there the first time Michael had broken his arm trying to climb the roof for their frisbee. Jeremy was there the first time Michael had gotten an ear infection. Jeremy was there when Michael had been going through his first break up.

“I thought you weren’t coming.”

Jeremy’s heart breaks right there in the nurse’s office. He remembers what Michael had said when they had finally talked after the squip mess. He was terrified that Jeremy was still going to leave him once he realized his new friends were so much better than just Michael. They cried a lot that night.

“Michael.” Jeremy says gently and he cries quiet just a tad. “Michael, you could be on the other side of the earth and if you were hurt I would drop everything and be with you.” He tried to convey as much honesty as possible in his statement.

“Really?” Michael looked up from Jeremy’s shoulder, his eyes are red and puffy and there’s snot dripping down his nose.

“Of course Michael, I would do anything for you.”

“Jeremy that’s a little gay.”

Jeremy is saved from saying anything else when they hear a laugh come from the doorway. Michael’s moms were standing there, watching them for who knows how long.

“Mama!” Michael is up and out of his arms when he realizes who was standing there. Jeremy mourns the loss of contact for a second before picking up Michaels backpack and handing it to his other mom.

“Come on, you’re looking better than what the nurse was saying.” Michael’s Nanay pats his head and withdraws her hand. “Why is your hair wet?”

“Oh there was an ice pack there at one point, I wonder where that went.” Michael looked around before shrugging.

His Nanay handed him a water bottle and Michael gave her a hug next.

“Are you ready to finally go home?” His Mama asked him.

“Yeah.”

“Are we taking Jeremy with us? I was thinking of going out for ice cream, Jeremy do you want ice cream? Nanay looks over at him.

“Yeah!” Michael answered for him, “Come on Jeremy lets go get ice cream.”

~

They’re sitting in Michael’s basement after getting ice cream, the starting screen to Apocalypse Of The Damned playing forgotten in the background. The AC in the basement is kicked on all the way, and Michael has his red hoodie back on. Jeremy had to have seen his arms during the day, but hadn’t said anything about them. Michael’s fidgeting slightly, he wants to get this conversation out of the way so they can just play some video games.

“What’s on your mind?” Jeremy asks.

“Don’t you want to, uh, talk about them?” Michael gestured to his arms.

Jeremy looked down at the ground, “I wasn’t going to bring it up unless you wanted to.”

“Let’s just get it out of the way.”

“So…” Jeremy trails off. He doesn’t know how to talk about things like this. It would be insensitive to say hey I noticed your self harm scars that are fairly new, even though you promised to quit, and I’m probably the reason you hurt yourself?

“It wasn’t you.” Michael says quietly, it takes Jeremy a moment to realize that he hadn’t actually said that last part out loud.

“I mean, it was when you were ignoring me but it wasn’t…” Michael trailed off, looking around for something to say. “My anxiety was just, really bad you know?” He laughed humorlessly. “I didn’t really know what to do with myself, and I kept thinking about the future and college and shit. I just got scared, and everything just got too much. Okay, maybe some of it may have been you.” Michael stared at the Pac-man poster on his wall. “I called you because we made that agreement and then you didn’t pick up and I remembered that you weren’t talking to me and I thought, not even my best friend cares about me now what’s the point.” He shrugged, looking over to Jeremy, who was crying…?

Big fat silent tears were falling down his face. He wasn’t making any noise as he cried. “Michael, I am, I’m so sorry!” Then he lunged at Michael. There was no way in his mind to make up for how badly he failed as a friend. He held Michael in his arms as he cried.

“It’s in the past.” Michael rubs his back. “You’re not under the control of a deranged super computer anymore. You’re here with me and nothing’s going to tear us apart.”

“You could say that I’m Heere for you?”

“Okay you ruined it, our moment is over Jeremiah.” Michael releases his hold on him and crosses his arms. “You’re dead to me now.”

“Oh come on I only use that pun like, once a day. It’s the gift I was burdened with.” Jeremy dramatically falls over onto Michael’s lap. “I am sorry.” He looked up at Michael’s face.

“I know you are.” Michael begins to card his fingers through Jeremy’s hair. “You have to remember this was a long time ago for me, I’m not good yet, but I’m getting there.” He smiled down at Jeremy.

And oh, Jeremy’s got a crush on Michael, he had forgotten there for a moment. And oh, his head is still sitting on Michaels lap, and his fingers are still running through his hair. This is really gay and, oh, now he’s thinking about kissing Michael, and now he’s blushing. Good job stopping those stupid thoughts.

Michael’s smile falls off his face and he opens his mouth. Before he can say anything Jeremy’s sitting up, launching himself out of Michaels lap and he grabbing the controller sitting on the table. He flung it at Michael’s face as Jenna’s words bounce back at him. 

“I want to know if you’re going to do anything about it, or if we’re going to have to set you guys up.”

Michael laughed at him, grabbing the controller that had fallen into his lap. “Too much talk about feelings Jere?”

Jeremy chuckled semi-awkwardly, he’s still blushing, and Michael scoots closer to him. Their legs are touching, and if he wanted to he could pull Michael onto his lap. He won’t though, he can’t ruin this friendship just because Michael makes his heart beat a little faster every time they’re close together. But Jenna’s words make him think of something, maybe Michael likes him too. Why else would Jenna threaten him like that if not for…?

Michael’s looking at him again, “Jeremy are you alright? You keep zoning out on me buddy.”

“Do you like me?” Jeremy’s brain stutters before he realizes what he had just said. “Uh I mean do you, uh , like-”

“Yes.” Michaels blushing, but still looking Jeremy in the eyes. “I really like you Jeremy Heere.”

Jeremy.exe has stopped responding.

“Do you like me too, or, um, cause normally when someone asks that they both like each other?” Michael rambles for a little bit, tugging at the strings of his sweatshirt as Jeremy returns back online.

“Yes!” Jeremy shouts it into Michael’s ears. “Oh sorry, I meant yes.” He confesses again, at a normal volume this time.

“Well this is good.”

“Yes good.”

“I’m good with this development.”

“Yes me too.”

Neither of them know what to do now.

“Do you wanna play some video games now?” Michael asks him, fiddling with the controller still in his hands.

“Uh yeah, if that’s what you want to do?”

“Cool.” Michael presses the start button and scoots himself onto Jeremy’s lap, biting at his lips. “Is this alright?”

“Yeah.” Jeremy says, wrapping his arms around Michael’s middle, and resting his head on the other boys shoulder. “This is alright.”

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Basically just some past self harm scars, nothing graphic at all. As well as some idk dark thoughts maybe? They're both hard on themselves but anxiety.


End file.
